For the first time I'm going to agree with murchr

I see a lot of guys always asking what can I do with my 1m and the answer is always buy shares, buy kaburoti. No one has ever given the advise buy a toothpick machine from china and sell toothpicks in all bars in Kenya.

The question using the above analogy then is where do I get bamboo for this? If you visit the so called farming websites online you shall find a topic like grow bamboo for profit. Each time someone asks "where is the market?" Buy the toothpick machine from china and then contract these bamboo farmers, then visit each and every butchery in Kenya. You won't need a sales team to succeed.

You have to wonder. Is it a lack of entreprenuership in the country? Lack of marketers? A lot of business people will confess to you that the most difficult department to fill in their companies is that of a marketer or salesperson. It's nearly impossible. So if the small business person can't fill the position what about the gov't of employed cronies. Tembea Kenya by Maina Kageni is an exception. But lets be honest, when you see him travelling with those gas guzzlers, a lot of people are intimidated thinking they also have to have a gas guzzler. Compare that to travel sites in the US that use simple bloggers to market their areas.

Manufacturing is being killed by all these taxes that no one can understand. accounting practices that mama mboga has no clue about. Marketing courses that are made to stupify rather than bring out the zen in a marketer. I had the misfortune of being told by a leading "digital marketer" that their online marketing plan consists of buying ads in Facebook and Ads in Google. As in use the most expensive mode of advertsing for a small business.

I don't know the answer to this question but unless we have a mind shift, we shall next buy cookies from China. How can we buy bananas from Uganda with all the land in Meru that produces exceptional bananas. If del monte leaves we shall be importing pineapples too.

I refuse to believe that there is a lack of market in Kenya. Did anyone just see a Pizza Hut opposite UON?

We just don't know how to sell our stuff. We also hire the worst managers to run organisations. Instead of hiring professionals, we hire my cousin who did a course in IT. If journalist schools are now producing such websites as Mpasho, Nairobi News, sijui standard sd what, etc. Places where spelling mistakes are taken as dictionaries and grammar is too expensive, how are we going to sustain a manufacturing environment?

We have accepted mediocre as normal. Manufacturing shall never thrive in such an environment.

Having said that, I hope a young guy takes up the toothpick challenge.

If you had a choice between a doctor whose degree was obtained from the University of Leeds (sijui kama they offer medicine course) and a doctor from Chiromo Campus which one do you choose?
An architect from UON to design your house or a UK trained architect, which one do you choose?
A civil engineer from MIT or a civil engineer from UON whcih one do you choose?



Most of the people will go for foreign trained specialists because they doubt the Locally trained specialists. We still talk of half baked graduates in Kenya. The same applies to manufacturing. People will go for foregin products because they doubt the Kenyan quality.
Research and developement.

I will quote Mutua , in Kenya we are very good at writing reports the put them in the shelves to gather dust.We are not good at implementing.

Rich countries have from time immemorial used ‘Standards’ to go around the matter of ‘free trade’. Hence, a pump or genset manufacturer with headquarters in say Germany is forced to open ‘local’ factories in most other European countries, since every country has its own ‘add-ons’ to the basic standard that you’ve to meet. In US, most building products must meet LEED standards hence locking out overseas products. Only in Africa we don’t know how to ‘legally’ protect our industries. We don't have standards